In the wake of the European financial and sovereign debt crisis there is a revived interest in the constitutional position of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the European Union legal order, notably its independence and democratic legitimacy. A new generation of researchers, witnessing and in...

The revolving door between government and the private sector has been criticized throughout history, based on the argument that it may lead to a pro-business bias in government policies. While this phenomenon has been extensively investigated for legislative and executive branch bodies, far less...

Tiny changes in the American monetary policy can have dramatic effects on the rest of the world because of dollar's double role of national and international currency. This is the Triffin dilemma. The paper shows how it works through three examples: price of commodities, dollarization, and the...

New technologies are driving transformational changes in the global financial system. Virtual currencies (VCs) and the underlying distributed ledger systems are among these. VCs offer many potential benefits, but also considerable risks. VCs could raise efficiency and in the long run strengthen...

Consumers are using cash less and less, and the use of private money, through companies such as Visa, Mastercard or Paypal, is increasing considerably. On the one hand, cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, were created in 2008, and on the other hand, private digital currencies backed by large...

Bank debit cards may look like credit cards, but they certainly do not act like them when it comes to account overdrafts. This does not suggest that credit cards are better than debit cards, as complaints abound concerning the transparency of fees charged to consumers for credit card...